How to win a bet?
by LenoreBorealis
Summary: Life is boring. And Draco Malfoy is bored. That is until he finds himself stuck in a bet against Blaise Zabini. Hermione Granger is a busy girl. And she doesn't have time for nonsense! But even so, she finds herself dragged into a bet with Ginny Weasley.


It was the beginning of yet another year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was a regular Thursday evening. Boring as ever! Draco Malfoy was sitting in the Slytherin common room, trying to read a very boring book for his Ancient Runes class the next morning. He wanted to scream of pure boredom! He wanted to pull his hair and bite his nails...but he didn't. The day had been bad enough as it was, without him ruining his perfect hair and beautiful nails.

The homework was all done, there was no Quiddich practice that evening, as it had been raining like hell the whole day.

The whole day had literally sucked! He had been looking forward to take a stroll outside, maybe find a nice girl to snog, hidden in the bushes... there had been some time since he had an adventure with someone, and it was about time he did something about that. But then it started raining! Bloody weather!

Draco Malfoy couldn't spend an entire week without hooking up with some girl. Over the years he had eventually gotten to snog almost every girl in the entire school from the 4th year and up, he had even played a little with some third years. None of these girls were Gryffindors, though, and he had to admit to himself that he was more than a little curious about how it would be to snog a few of these feisty little females.

How come he'd never thought about hooking up with a Gryffindor before? There were plenty of cute girls in said house. Truth be told, he couldn't think of a single one that wasn't pretty enough for a good session. Even the Gryffindor Mudblood had the looks on her side, he had to admit. She was undeniably cute with her little nose, her big brown eyes and her bad temper. True, he had always seen her as an annoying monkey, albeit a cute one.

Sure, she had that enormous, monstrous hair but it kind of made her look like a lioness… or maybe a lion as lionesses don't have hair. But she looked like a lioness nonetheless. It gave her a fierce look, untamed, wild! Like she wouldn't let anybody cross her!

But she was still a dirty Mudblood, thus not worthy of his admiration for her looks and personality. She was the last person with whom he would ever want to have anything at all. _"Not even if she was the last female on earth!" _He would rather do a cow!

Why should he even think about her anyway, when her house was full of sexy girls? Take Ginny Weasley, for example! Man, was she hot! Her waist long red hair, she seemed to be on fire all the time! Her family name was a shame though and Draco wondered if she ever felt embarrassed to be a Weasley. _"I know I would! Good Merlin!"_ The thought alone made him shudder.

Not to mention Parvati Patil, Lavender Brown and lots of other Gryffindor girls. Why couldn't he remember any of these girls' names? He supposed it was because he didn't have classes with the rest of them. And who didn't know the Weaselette? Every straight male (or gay female) ought to be fantasizing about her!

Draco wondered if she was still a virgin. Somehow he doubted it. She didn't seem the type of girl who would want to save her virginity until the day Prince Charming would come and sweep it away. That would probably be Granger's case. That girl was so uptight; he doubted that she would even let her poor husband touch her when the time came. _"Even better so! Let her bloodline die right there!" _She had probably never even kissed a guy.

Not that he himself was a very experienced man. He had shagged, alright, but it had mainly been with a few Slytherin girls and just a couple of times. He had snogged half of the school population, though. And he proudly thought of himself as a hell of a kisser!

#

Draco was starting to feel drowsy and wondered what time it was. He pulled a gold pocket watch out of his school robe. Half past ten. It was a little early for him to get sleepy. It had to be because of the horribly boring day. As he decided to go to bed and got up from the couch, Blaise Zabini who had been sitting beside him, reading the same boring Ancient Runes book (with a weirdly interested look on his face – how was it even possible to enjoy such a boring book?) looked up and talked to him:

"Bored?" Draco just nodded in response, stifling a yawn.

"What do you say we make a bet to spiffen these boring autumn days up a little, my friend?"

Blaise smiled.

Draco turned to look at Blaise, but didn't answer, as if waiting for the other one to continue.

Blaise cleared his throat as if he was going to announce something important. "I was just thinking about the fact that you've seemed pretty lonely lately, as have I. So... as to lighten up our existence... you know, just to have a little fun..." He cleared his throat again "...we could choose one another a fine female specimen and the first man to get into her pants wins the bet!"

"I choose yours and you choose mine?" Draco asked.

"Exactly!" Blaise answered.

Draco nodded approvingly. "Or, we could write the names of some of the Gryffindor girls on pieces of paper and pick one without looking." He said. "I do believe I know who you had in mind for me, and I won't "do" her if I can avoid it!" – Somehow, he thought Blaise would pick Granger for him, just for fun. Blaise's fun, not Draco's.

Blaise chuckled. "A Gryffindor? Never tasted one of those! Be it your way then!" and he found himself a piece of parchment and a quill, tore the parchment in little pieces and started to scribble down some names. When each of the names were all written down, he found his pointed hat and slipped the pieces inside it, willing Draco to extract one of them.

"Don't look at it yet!" Blaise said and handed the hat to Draco, after which he extracted one himself.

As they both looked down at their chosen girl's names, Draco's face contorted in a scowl and Blaise's lit up in glee. "Ginny Weasley!" he said happily.

"Hermione Granger." Draco answered grudgingly.

###########

Hermione was sitting in her common room. It had been a very productive day! She had managed to gain 30 points for Gryffindor in Charms, Arithmancy, and Transfiguration!

She had finished all her homework relatively early, and she had even spent a couple of hours in the library. Not because she needed to, but for the simple pleasure of reading without being interrupted every fifth minute by some hyperactive first year, the insistent explosions of The Weasley twins' illegal artifacts or by Ron who kept nudging her and asking for help with his homework (as usually).

At the end of the day she had happily engaged in a girly conversation with Lavender, Parvati, Ginny and some other girls. Main conversation theme: boys! She hadn't talked much but she had listened intently. It was not something she usually liked to talk about. She just wasn't too into girly chat.

She liked the fact that she was rational when it came to boys, as to everything else and that she didn't let her hormones take complete control of her mind and body (unlike her dorm mates).

But it wouldn't hurt to engage in that kind of conversations once in a while. It sure was educational! And even Hermione had one day woken up to find that she was an (almost) regular teenage girl, with (almost) regular needs.

She knew that there were some quite good looking boys attending at Hogwarts and not only. She had found many of Viktor Krum's schoolmates quite charming, not to mention Viktor himself! Quite a gentleman, well built and handsome. The weeks they had spent together had been amazing and she'd missed him a lot when he had to return to Durmstrang. He had been her very first (and so far, her only) boyfriend.

They had hardly had any privacy, thanks to his huge fan club at Hogwarts. If they weren't following him around, they were spying on him, hidden behind the many armoires, corners and statues that adorned the long corridors. Hermione and Krum had often been forced to make schemes and plans on how to get away from the constant herd of giggling girls.

They had found some relatively private places where they (most of the time) could be alone with each other: behind the portrait which led to the kitchen (trying not to be discovered by a house elf), in a classroom which was almost never used (trying not to be caught by a school teacher); behind a statue of a warlock on the fourth floor... and the best place of them all: a strange room which seemed like it had popped up from nowhere (she would later discover that it was the Room of Requirements).

Yes, it had been some really nice months, full of romantic moments which almost made her giggle like a silly little girl. Just the memories these moments brought her made her feel warm and fuzzy inside!

Unfortunately they had decided to end the relationship when he had to return, as none of them believed in long distance relationships.

#

Hermione had been so immersed in her own thoughts (about Krum) that she'd been startled to find all the other girls looking at her expectantly.

"What?" she asked confused

"Thinking about Viktor again, were we?" Ginny smirked at her while the other girls awed, looking at her sympathetically. "I was just saying..." the red haired continued, "that…"

Hermione blushed. "I wasn't thinking about Viktor!" she interrupted, knowing that Ginny wouldn't believe her. "And I don't know which boys are cutest!"

"You certainly weren't listening to what I was saying!" Ginny answered. "What I _was_ saying… or more accurately: what I was _proposing…" – _Hermione looked rather fearfully at Ginny, who never came up with a good and _decent _proposal – always something concerning boys, and always something that would make Hermione promise herself that she would never ever engage in another girl chat again! Ever! It was a wonder, really, that such a smart girl had such a hard time learning that nothing good could come from girl talks!

"You want us to do _what_?" Hermione squeaked.

"A bet!" Lavender grinned. "Each of us will get a boy we'll have to seduce…"

"…And it's got to be someone challenging!" Parvati piped in.

"We'll choose yours, Hermione; you girls will choose mine and so on!" Ginny finished, looking at her happily. "No need to take it very far, some snogging will suffice!"

Hermione sighed. She would never get out of this one. She might as well accept it and get it over with as soon as possible! Maybe she could even get something good from it: it wouldn't hurt to change people's opinion of her, if only a little bit. "Ok, but I'm NOT doing Malfoy!" Hermione huffed.

"_Why can't everyone be more like me?"_ – she thought frustrated as Ginny embraced her in a tight hug.


End file.
